I guess I have to tell my war story now:
I was working as a guide for an outfit in New Zealand in 2001. Whenever we had some slow times, we would try to put together a trip for ourselves. George ( the outfitters son) and myself paid a pilot to fly us up deep into the mountains on the east coast of the south island. We planned to stay for 4 days and then Jaime (the pilot) would return to pick us up and at the same time,and then drop Allen (the outfitter who I worked for) and Rachal (his daughter)off, so they could utilize the same camp setup and try to get her a bull tahr. Anyway, George and myself hastily loaded the chopper because it is first, getting late and it was a 40 min. ride, and secondly, because it was raining. The trip was uneventful to the landing spot and we unloaded everything off the chopper ASAP. It was when the pilot asked us if we had brought the 2 way radio that we realized we had made the mistake of forgetting it. "No big deal," we thought. Jaime said he would be back in 4 days to pick us up,weather permitting. We made camp and prepared for the following day. The next day we start out looking for a trophy Chamois. We head up a drainage behind camp and after about an hour, spot a good head to try for. I ended up making what is still my best shot ever on that Chamois. 400+ yards across a deep gorge. We skin it out and put some of the meat and I put the cape and some of the meat in my pack frame. We continue hunting all day until the rain is just coming down too hard and we decide to head for camp and call it a day. We started down a really narrow, steep shoot and George decides to go down first to see how dangerous it was. He makes it to the bottom and tells me I should take a path about 50 fet further to the right. I start down and it is about a quarter of the way down that I realllly screw up. The small piece of rock that I had all my weight on decided to go. Because of the heavy pack, it threw my weight off balance. That is where the rodeo started. I freefell 40 feet,smashed into the rocks below and cominced to somersaulting end over end down the slope for another 200 yards. When I came to a stop, I could'nt beleive I was still alive! I tried to stand up, but something was really wrong. George came racing down and the look on his face is something I will never forget. I could tell I was a mess just from his expression. I had several lacerations to my arms and head. I had totally dislocated my hip from the socket and torn my ass mucsles( no jokes please!!) that hold the hip into place. I had fractured my ankle on the other foot. And , to top it all off, remember that radio we forgot, I had to lay there for 3 full days before the chopper came back to get us. It was too far of a walk for George to even think about trying, so he packed camp and moved it to me.Those 3 days were the longest days of my life. I literaly had to lay on one side the entire time. Pure misery. When I saw that chopper come out of the fog on that 3rd day, I was so happy and relived, I cried like a baby. Jamie landed me right onto the lawn of the small clinic nearest to us, and they assesed the damage. They then thought I was in bad enough shape that they called the Medivac chopper out of Christchurch to come pick me up. Ended up spending 8 days in the hospital recovering and was on crutches and physical therapy for a while after that. The wreck was bad enough that a news channel caught wind of the story and came and interviewed me for TV over there. On the program, they said that an average of 10 people die every year in the southern Alps from falls. Guess I was pretty lucky. All healed up now though. Got one hell of a story and trophy Chamois out of it, though! All and all, I would say that the moral of my story is to never break the golden rule of alpine hunting: never have less than 3 anchor points on the ground at all times, and to never forget your radio. You never know when you'll need it!
Hope you enjoyed my " Field & Stream Survivor Story" as my friends call it,
Scottyboy
